The 2008 Olympics are currently captivating the world audience. People who never follow sports whatsoever, are now glued to the television set. Is it pride for your country that has your attention?

Perhaps it is for the love of sport you are planning days around coverage. Here is my two cents on why any of this matters.

The dark side of all sports can be tied to marketing. In May 2004, Dick Ebersol was named chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics. He is responsible for all sports programming on the NBC and USA Networks. When he looked at how he can get people to tune in every four years for the biggest sports stage in the world, he knew that he had to captivate the non-sports people.

Men tuning into sports is no problem, we’ll at least flip to a non-familiar sport just to check it out. It’s the wives, daughters, grandmas, women, little boys, and pop culture fans that Ebersol needed to reach, and that he did with the power of marketing. Case in point, Michael Phelps.

Sure, now all of America and most of the world is ‘rah rahing’ for him and his quest for gold medals, but how often did they tune in or follow his career during the last three years?

With the power of marketing, women in coffee shops are saying ‘how about that Phelps’.

How about the 40-year-old mother who is swimming her way into the hearts of many?

I had someone ask me if the MOTHER had won a gold. Without marketing she would not have know who Dara Torres was.

This is one big show, and in individual sports it is easy to gain an audience for a month every four years, and yes marketing makes you a fan. But let’s look at the purity of what is happening.

The top of all individual sports is the Olympics. You can beat all the people you want to within your shores, but until you test yourself against the world’s best, you have no idea of how good you really are. Here is the kicker; you train your entire life for one event, which amazes me. There is no payoff to the hard work you put in till you compete for a medal.

What everybody has to focus on is what it takes to get to the games and what it means to be there. You have to throw out the loyalty to flag and appreciate the competition.

Growing up in Cayman with an American father, I spent a lifetime rooting for Caymanians, Brits, and Americans. Now I’m married to a Canadian who has Ukrainian and French background, so what do I do?

Shut up and watch the competition, and now I have found a whole new respect for the athletes involved.

I got caught up in sports I never watched, like kayaking, team volleyball (I always liked women’s beach volleyball), gymnastics, and synchronized diving. I never watch this stuff, but it is fun to see these people give it their all right now.

Perhaps Ebersol got me too with the marketing, but I do have a new found respect for watching individual sports and I think I am not the only one. No, I will not be Googling the results of the water polo teams throughout the year, but at least I now know how the game is played and that is a payoff.

The important thing is that I don’t get down when the country I root for has not earned a gold to hold, like Cayman. It’s like betting on a football game; you never pay attention to the little things and relax watching. I’m too busy yelling at the TV because I’m losing money. Now I can get chills when I see China has won their first gold ever in swimming, or how a cancer patient from the US has broken his personal best in swimming, or how women from Georgia and Russia hugged it out after winning silver and gold in the pistol event.

The biggest story going into August was the lack of human rights and the Darfur problems China has had. But I am willing to say that because of the Olympics, the power of sport, Ebersol, and everybody tuning in, there is a change coming to China with the world watching. This is the new falling of the Berlin wall right in front of our eyes.